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A Space of Her Own
An extract from A Space of Her Own talks about the position of women in patriarchal society.
An extract from the chapter 'The Wind Beneath My Wings' in the book, A Space of her own by Leela Gulati and Jasodhara Bachi(Sage, 2005)
I didn’t know my grandmother Narayani very well, except that she had no particular interest in me. Whenever I offered a ritual pranam to her, as on Bijoya, she offered me a sweet with a blessing, touching my head lightly with the tips of the fingers of her right hand. Did she smile? Was there a caress in her touch? Did she offer me one of her sweet toothless smiles that she reserved for Dadabhai (elderbrother)? I can’t remember. For me she had a grim face, a faraway look. For me she was a ritual. My grandmother was not fond of her granddaughters.
Since I know little of Narayani, my Didima (maternal grandmother), I looked up my maternal uncle’s autobiography to find out more about her. She spent last days with him, her favourite son, after her husband passed away. Mamababu (maternal uncle) writes that he had always been a dedicated son, that there was nothing in the world that he would not have done for his mother. She was given a grand funeral and a magnificent memorial service, and, on top of all that, a free bed was dedicated to her memory at the Cancer Hospital in Calcutta.
Dididma was the daughter of an aristocratic feudal family, the Duttas of Hathkhola, who appear in the history of Calcutta city. The sprawling family mansion in north Calcutta still exists with its stables and garages for carriages, cowsheds and broken palanquins on the ground floor, surrounding the central courtyard which faces the family temples where the annual family Durga puja is held to this day.
Mamababu had written in great detail about his father, his uncles, his grandfather and his great-grandfather. But not a word more about his beloved mother. Who was she? Where did she come from? Who were her parents? How many brothers and sisters did she have? What was her name? Her dedicated son was not interested in telling us all that. Her name appeared only once, as a caption under a faded photograph, never in the text of the book.
